Human Capital Architecture: What is an HR Architect?

Human Capital Architecture could be defined as a complete and holistic expression of the HR organisation as a collaborative enterprise force. Two insights emerge from this - firstly, Human Capital Architecture provides a framework to understand, in systemic manner, all the divergent elements or dimensions that consitute or make up the HR organisation - and secondly, how this HR organisation as the sum of all its parts, is strategically aligned with the extended enterprise to actively support the achievement of the enterprise's business objectives.

An HR Architect therefore, is responsible for design, implementation, testing and maintenance of the HR organisation's architecture blueprint or the master plan that defines, standardises, describes and documents all those elements or dimensions inherent to the architecture - as well as their interrelationships and dependencies.

The abovementioned analysis and assessment are done specificallly to integrate all the identified components within every layer of the architecture, within context of the Human Capital or People strategy.

The adoption of a unique "domain" Human Capital Architecture based on the principles of Enterprise Architecture as a roadmap for the planned and systematic execution of the Human Capital strategy, is a very productive approach as it ensures alignment with the business strategy and Enteprise Architecture - something that will result in very positive attitudes from the IT department.